The rifle is constructed from real metal receivers and freefloat handguard (same as the .223 big brother NEA-15) although the buffer tube was empty as in .22lr there is nothing reciprocating out of the receivers. Overall the NEA15-22 feels like a real rifle, which is good as it is supposed to be a cheap training method compared to my AR-15.

First of all, the trigger is horrible (probably as it is somewhat milspec) but who doesn’t change the trigger to what they’re used to / can afford?

NEA-15-22 original trigger

The action seems very similar to chiappa/ATI .22lr conversion ( Chiappa M4-22 parts ) and the included magazines were also chiappa, more on those later.

action dissassembly screwdisassembled action

The bolt finishing is very crude and there appears to be some copper colored patches, maybe from worn out coating.

bolt face

The bolt construction is pretty simple. One roll pin to hold the extractor and the small extractor spring. NOTE: the pin is at an angle but the punch hole is not..

The firing pin has a notch for the retaining pin that holds it on place and limits the movement. The firing pin spring pushes the pin tail out from the bolt for the hammer to be able to hit it. Although the spring is way too tight and results in some non firing rounds when trigger is pulled.

bolt and small parts

The bolt and action guide rails finishing does not seem as bad as the bolt itself, some polishing has occurred in 700 rnds.

bolt guide

The barrel has a kind of barrel extension/shroud and the ramp is connected to it. There is a little gap between the ramp and barrel face, also the shroud is not as long as the barrel is. This leads to that it seems that the lock is not closed, but it is as the bolt is against the barrel, not the shroud.

Little gap between ramp and the barrel face“barrel extension”(shroud) that is not quite in level with barrel face

After some test firing, it seems that the chiappa magazines are pretty unreliable and the follower got stuck multiple times. Mag started working again when the follower was pulled a little down and then released. They also have a lot of leeway when they are inserted in the gun.

jammed chiappa mag with top shot (maybe cleaning helps..)chiappa mag and the follower

BDM worked fine and had the most snug fit, although they are a pain in the as to fill by hand as you cannot pull the follower down. BDM has a high follower that will lock between bolt and barrel face when magazine is empty, resulting that bolt is held open (but will close when you remove the mag 😛 ) just as with the chiappa magazines.

S&W was not so snug but worked fine and I ordered the Boonie Parker Better-Mag adapter for further testing. S&W follower is not extended out of the mag and thus the bolt will close with empty mag.